


makes it all just disappear

by ikijai



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Implied Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 15:10:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13720317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikijai/pseuds/ikijai
Summary: my take on a possible extension of that last scene between T'Challa & Erik.





	makes it all just disappear

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken directly from 'Litost' by X Ambassadors.

There’re tears in Erik's eyes. He speaks of his father with a pride that stings T’Challa deep to the core. It's a pride he’d felt for his own father until he’d learned the truth, until he understood that ugly deeds don't always originate in ugly places.

“You believe that? Kid from Oakland runnin’ around believing in fairytales?”

T’Challa doesn’t speak, doesn’t think anything he’d let slip his tongue would justify the treatment of Erik Killmonger before he’d been tainted. He just stands, preparing to leave this darkness for the trains. Despite what this man has done, despite the turmoil and dirtied ideologies wrung in truth, T’Challa wants him to see beauty before death. He deserves that much, deserves to see that not everything about this nation is what his dad told him in his youth.

The tinted sky warms his insides by the time it hits them. From the top, they can see it all. The trees go until they disappear from sight. There's a whole universe before their eyes, distant from the cries of war or shame.

“It's beautiful,” Erik says.

“It's what you should've experienced from the beginning,” T’Challa utters back, trying and failing not to look down.

The other man takes a deep breath. One that looks debilitating even if T’Challa isn't the one to feel it.

“Things could've been different, T’Challa,” Erik lets out, distinct, untouched by hatred. His voice is steady despite the tears to suggest otherwise. “It didn't have to be like this.”

T’Challa ducks his head. “It didn't.”

He watches Erik breath in and out, around the weapon impaling the parts that make a person _a person_. He did that. His hands are dirtied by the blood of a man who should've never been his opponent.

T’Challa swallows his pride. He's terrified to discover what's underneath it. “I'm sorry this happened.”

“I'm not.” Erik’s response is immediate, undisguised and too-exposed. “One of us had to come out on top, right? Probably better that it's you.”

It isn't pity or a plea for understanding that colors his tone. It's all truth. Disgusting truth that makes T’Challa’s insides tighten in discomfort. It’s within his power to keep these things from happening. It isn't to kill those who threaten his people.

Tears sting T’Challa’s own eyes. They drip down his face, tasting like sorrow and brotherhood felt for too insignificant a time.

It’s akin to the betrayal of W’Kabi—the betrayal of his own father years before he thought the man could be anything but the kind of leader he wanted to be. It's true, what he told him. It's difficult for a good man to king.

Erik takes a sharp inhale then, and T’Challa looks down. There’re too many words at the tip of his tongue. But none of them will do either of them any justice. So T’Challa waits, and he stays and listens to the dying man take his last breaths.

It's a terrible thing. To watch someone die right beside you and to not be able to do a damn thing but try to keep it together. He sees the pain written obviously in Erik’s eyes, sees the disappointment plain as day.

They both lost their dads to bullshit power dynamics. They both know what that's like.

  
There's a difference, though. Erik'd been a kid when his universe fell to pieces, a kid when his own people turned their backs instead of taking him in.

“I'm trying to be a good king,” T’Challa says.

Erik laughs then, deep, filled to the brim with irony. “Tryin’ and doin’ are two different things.”

T’Challa thinks he's nodding or trembling, it's difficult to tell.

Erik’s tear-stained face shows so much. Disappointment, fear, _urgency_. There’s an unmistakable look in his dark eyes. It's the look of a man who’s ready to die. T’Challa’s got the inkling he's been ready for too long.

They knew each other for days. They tried to kill each other. Erik wasn't right. But damn, he wasn't wrong.

“I wanted the throne.” The other man is whispering now, too close to death’s door to let his tone be any louder.

T’Challa sees the person behind the man who tried to kill him. The innocent kid from Oakland.

“Loyalty,” T’Challa whispers back. “It can make you blind to the truth.”

“That ain't all it can do.”

“I had to defeat you,” T’Challa says, and he isn't sure if he’s talking to Erik or himself. “I had to make that decision.”

“Trust me, I know." Erik'd face is turned. “I traveled the world. I killed innocent people to get to you.”

T’Challa inhales deeply through his nose, taking a knee beside the dying man whose life will forever dirty his hands. “You must make peace with what you've done. It is the only way to move forward.”

“Forward?” There's a sound that escapes Erik’s throat, distinct and sad. He's accepted his fate in the matter of an instant. “Think the only direction I'm headed is down.”

Erik keeps going before T’Challa tries to interrupt. “I just want you to tell me one thing.”

“Yes?” T’Challa questions.

“You—you don't let Wakanda be just like everywhere else. You don't turn your back.”

“I don't want to play judge, jury, executioner.”

The distorted sound of Erik's laugh stills him. “One day you'll understand that that's not what I'm talking ‘bout.”

T’Challa is only interrupted a second time when he tries to say something.

“If I do go anywhere but down?” Erik takes a deep breath and T’Challa knows the words are difficult to get out for more reasons than one. “I’mma tell Zuri what you did. I’mma tell him what you told me. You're gon’ be better than what I am—than what I was. You'll be a good king.”

T’Challa tries to talk, tries to swallow the knot is throat. This is a kind of difficulty he isn't sure he can ignore. “Maybe we can still heal you.”

“You got my back?”

T’Challa pauses for a moment, insecure in an out-of-body kind of way. It's an odd question, but he indulges. “I do.”

Erik’s final words are heavy, ingraining themselves into T’Challa before they pound in his eardrums. “Then don't try to bring me back. Just don't. That's the last thing I want after all this. Just bury me in ocean, with the rest of my ancestors who jumped ship because they knew death was better than bondage.”

It's over. It's done.

Erik’s words travel through his temple. Every one from declarations of murder to rightly-placed blame.

T’Challa could ignore the other man. He could disregard these past few days and keep Wakanda going the way it is. But he won't let his father’s wrongdoings define what kind of leader he’ll be. Their discoveries will not go to waste. He will not be that kind of king.


End file.
